NEWSLETTER September 2020 – N°7

| EDITORIAL p. 2 | NEWS p. 3 | CASE STUDIES Advisory Commission: Hans von Marées, Uhlans on the March p. 8 Spoliation Advisory Panel: A gothic relief in ivory p. 10 | REPORTS Provenance Research Day p. 11 Provenance research at the University of Vienna p. 13 IDAC – Law Art Culture Institute, University of Lyon p. 15 UMA – Universal Museum of Art p. 16 | FIELD REPORT After the famous cases – Provenance research and the sociological shift p. 17 | ADDENDUM

Provenance research in Slovenia: An interview with Barbara Murovec p. I September 2020 – N°7 EDITORIAL

The editorial for the autumn issue of our Newsletter may be seen as a continuation of what was said in Newsletter 6/2020. Pandemics affect all of us, including the member countries of our network, not to the same extent everywhere, but still in an all-encompassing manner and, at least here in Austria, with renewed virulence at present. It therefore seems appropriate to pay tribute to a tool whose absence would have made the exchange of information and continued working even more difficult if not catastrophic had this situation – quarantine, lockdown, self-isolation – occurred, say, twenty-five years ago. I’m talking about the Internet, with all its imperfections. Today it enables us, not only in the isolation of a pandemic, to conduct provenance research more effectively and efficiently through the use of digital sources. Knowing and using the relevant websites and tools have long become basic skills, and the various commissions in our network are called upon to further develop this virtual digital network with the aim of establishing databases of information that can be used and accessed internationally. You can find here a small selection of sites mentioned just in this autumn 2020 issue of the Newsletter. With that in mind, let’s stay informed so that we can network even more effectively in future.

Pia Schölnberger, Administrative director | Commission for Provenance Research

2 September 2020 – N°7 NEWS KOMMISSION FÜR of Bookbindings. Resources and methodologies emplo- yed for investigating questions pertaining to the Nazi era PROVENIENZFORSCHUNG will be discussed, and the challenges and limitations faced when examining printed material, and how these challenges are confronted on a daily basis, underlined. In sharing Commission for Provenance Research case studies of items in the library collection that were The Commission for Provenance Research website is identified as having been spoliated, the paper furthermore currently being restructured so as to improve the presenta- highlights the ethical, moral and legal considerations that tion of the tasks, work and results of provenance research arise in seeking just and fair solutions for the return of cul- and restitution in the state-owned collections involving tural property dispossessed as a result of Nazi persecution. not only the Commission for Provenance Research but also the work of the Art Restitution Advisory Board. There Markus Stumpf/Jutta Fuchshuber: “‘Suizid-Bücher’: Pro- is also information about possibilities for research. And, of venienzforschung und bibliothekarische Erinnerungsarbeit” course, the Network of European Restitution Committees (p 295–312, DOI: https://doi.org/10.25364/guv.2020.voebs on Nazi-Looted Art is represented as well: http://www.pro- 15.22). venienzforschung.gv.at/en/kommission/network-of-euro- Abstract: This contribution addresses the topic of suicide, pean-restitution-committees/ an issue only marginally discussed in the context of provenance research. The humiliation, discrimination, dis- For obvious reasons, the Art Restitution Advisory Board possession and persecution under the NS regime led to an has not been able to meet in the past few months, nor has increase in suicides among Jewish people. First, the source it been possible to report on events that have taken place material available in Austria is described through examples. or are planned in the near future. It is therefore all the The case study of Eleonora and Stefan Czember is discussed more pleasing to note that in spite of the difficult condi- to explore the question of how to deal with books that were tions a number of publications have appeared dealing with legally acquired but clearly belonged to Holocaust victims. aspects of provenance research and specific cases. Lisa Frank/Regina Zodl: “Das Exlibris Doris J. Klang als Beispiel eines bibliotheksübergreifenden Provenienzfalls” (p. Publications 313–25, DOI: https://doi.org/10.25364/guv.2020.voebs15.23). At the end of July 2020 a further thirty entries were pub- Abstract: In the course of provenance research at libraries lished in the Lexicon of Austrian Provenance Research. in Austria and Germany, a bookplate with the name Doris J. There are now 295 articles available for consultation: Klang has been documented several times, for example at https://www.lexikon-provenienzforschung.org the Vienna University of Economics and Business and at the Natural History Museum in Vienna. Until 1914 the insurance The proceedings of the 34th Austrian Library Conference expert James Klang was registered in Vienna. His library was (Graz, 2019), edited by Christina Köstner-Pemsel, Elisabeth taken over by his son, the renowned lawyer Heinrich Klang, Stadler and Markus Stumpf and published at Unipress Ver- as can be seen from the probate file. The latter had to sell lag Graz in 2020 (open access, DOI https://doi.org/10.25364/ the books in 1939 because of persecution. In addition to the guv.2020.voebs15), contain four peer-reviewed contribu- relevant bookplate, provenance aspects in the books also tions about provenance research in libraries: refer to the antiquarian bookshop Alfred Wolf as the buy- er, who was involved in the looting of books by the Nazis. Antonia Bartoli: “Findings from the bindings: An overview of Nazi-Era spoliation research at the British Library” (p. 277–94, Justus Düren: “Die Bibliothek des ‘Sonderauftrags Münzen’ – DOI: https://doi.org/10.25364/guv.2020.voebs15.21). Erste Ergebnisse” (p. 327–37, DOI: https://doi.org/10.25364/ Abstract: Since the signing of the Washington Conference guv.2020.voebs15.24). Principles in 1998, the British Library has taken its du- Abstract: In 1942, the numismatist Fritz Dworschak was ties seriously to identify collection items that might have commissioned to set up a coin cabinet in the art muse- been displaced between the years 1933 through 1945. um in Linz planned by Adolf Hitler, in which works of art The present paper provides a brief overview of Spoliation collected through seizure and purchase were to be exhi- Research projects at the library and a longer summary of its bited. This collection contained numismatic objects from most recent investigations into the Henry Davis Collection monasteries and orders as well as collections from Jewish 3 NEWS September 2020 – N°7

persecutees and purchases in Austria after 1938. For the CIVS & M2RS research work, approximately 4,500 volumes of numismatic literature were taken from the monastery libraries or obtained from the book trade. This article deals with this Looted art – new interdisciplinary perspectives library history and its restitution. for provenance research and restitution in the Franco-German context In the proceeds of the symposium „Logiken der Sam- mlung“, Stifterhaus Linz, April 2019, Monika Mayer pub- 30 September 2020, Institut français, Adenauerallee 35, lished an article on the former collection of Mathilde and 53113 Bonn Gottlieb Kraus: “Gestapo/Sonderauftrag Linz/Central Point München/Öster- French and German specialists in provenance research and reichische Galerie/Restitution: Zur Geschichte der Kunstsamm- restitution procedures met in November 2017 at the Kunst- lung von Mathilde und Gottlieb Kraus in Wien”, in Petra-Ma- halle in Bonn, Germany, for a conference entitled “Spolia- ria Dallinger, Klaus Kastberger, eds., Logiken der Sammlung: tion et trafic: Le marché de l’art français sous l’occupation Das Archiv zwischen Strategie und Eigendynamik, vol. 4 of the allemande (1940–1944)”. This two-day conference orga- series Literatur und Archiv (Berlin/Boston 2020), pp. 163–76. nized by the Deutsches Zentrum Kulturgutverluste (DZK) https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110696479 was the first large-scale Franco-German event dealing with the systematic spoliation of art in France during the Oc- In January 2019, a con- cupation. The conference demonstrated that networking ference with interna- between France and Germany needed to be strengthened. tional experts entitled For that purpose, the Commission pour l’indemnisation “Vom Bodensee in die des victimes de spoliations (CIVS), the Käte Hamburger Welt? Der Kunsttrans- Kolleg “Recht als Kultur” and the Bureau de la Coopéra- fer in der Vierländer- tion Universitaire of the French Embassy co-organized a region und seine Rolle new workshop on 20 and 21 February 2019 in Bonn (“Art für die Provenienzfor- spolié: recherche de provenance et pratiques de restituti- schung” took place at on en Allemagne et en France”) with a view to exchanging the Zeppelin Muse- information and strengthening the network. More than um Friedrichshafen as 130 archivists, researchers, librarians, curators and institu- part of the exhibition tional representatives, mainly from France and Germany, “Eigentum verpflichtet: responded to the invitation. The work of the relevant in- Eine Kunstsammlung stitutions in each country was examined, as well as the fun- auf dem Prüfstand”. damental issues raised by the question of the restitution It was attended by of cultural property. The workshop also discussed methods Julia Eßl, provenance researcher at the Albertina in and the use of sources and presented some practical cases. Vienna. An article by her entitled “‘[…] wie sich das Schick- The search for “just and fair solutions” prescribed by the sal unserer Sammlung endgültig gestaltet’: Die Sammlung Washington Principles guided the debates. Heumann, Chemnitz” appeared in the publication Eigentum verpflichtet edited by Claudia Emmert, Ina Neddermeyer, The second workshop will take place online on 30 Sep- Mark Niehoff and the Zeppelin Museum Friedrichshafen and tember 2020 and will follow on from the first event. It will published on 18 August 2020. bring together experts from various disciplines with a view to promote resonant discussion and give new impetus to www.hugendubel.info/detail/ISBN-9783958083110/Her- Franco-German cooperation in provenance research and ausgegeben-von-Emmert-Claudia/Eigentum-verpflichtet the restitution of looted cultural property. This year, the organizers will highlight the work of young researchers in France and Germany who are interested in working together on the themes of deportation and spoliations during the Nazi era .

The opening address will be given by the French ambassa- dor to Germany, Her Excellency Anne-Marie Descôtes, and

4 NEWS September 2020 – N°7

the workshop will end with a conference chaired by Beate Two upcoming events are planned within the framework of Klarsfeld on “Artworks vs crematorium background”. the seminar: The aim of this conference is to highlight the continued relevance of the Shoah and to place the issues 15 October 2020 of deportation and spoliation in the context of current political events in France and Germany and to re- “Museums confronting history: how to introduce spoliation flect in general on the life and memory of the victims and restitution?” and restitution of looted property to their descendants. Under the title “(Wieder-)Entdecken” ((Re-)discover), the The workshop will be held in French and German (simul- Museum of Fine Arts Mannheim (Kunsthalle Mannheim, taneous interpretation). The proceedings will be published. Germany) currently has an exhibition on the effects of If you would like to participate in the event online, please the National Socialist period on its collection: the loss of register here: [email protected]. approximately 500 works in 1937 due to the confiscation of “degenerate art”. But the museum reminds us that it cannot be considered exclusively as a victim, as it was INHA here that the first exhibition devoted to the denigration After a first cycle of seminars entitled “Looted heritage of the modern avant-garde took place in 1933. Emphasis during the Nazi regime (1933–1945)” in 2019 devoted to is also placed on several Jewish families, major donors to provenance research in different countries, museums or the museum, whose lives were brutally interrupted by Na- collections, the Institut national d’histoire de l’art INHA zism. Finally, the museum presents the results of ongoing (National Institute of Art History) is continuing to study provenance research, which sheds light on the origin and specific cases this year, mentioning new countries and fo- development of some of their works. How can we exhibit cusing on the situations of certain galleries. For this second the controversial history of a collection? Curator Mathias year, the seminar, organized in cooperation with the Nati- Listl will discuss this with Sébastien Allard, Director of the onal Heritage Institute and the Ministry of Culture’s Missi- Paintings Department at the Louvre. on de recherche et de restitution des biens culturels spoliés entre 1933 et 1945 (M2RS), is widening the discussion to 18 November 2020 include the context, meaning and consequences of provenance research and the restitution of artworks. The spoliation of cultural property: what is its rightful place in the history and memory of the Shoah? While research and restitution of assets looted during the Nazi regime have now become a necessity, this quest still What place should be given to the specific spoliation of gives rise to criticism and questions. Why are we looking cultural property when so many men and women were for looted art? Why are we more interested in looted art murdered, when so many everyday goods were stolen or than in other looted assets or property? What are the con- destroyed? Why is there such an interest in artworks? Do sequences of restitution for future generations? What does they attract too much attention? This additional session restitution mean for the descendants of those who were will take place exceptionally at the Museum of Jewish Art disseized, finding themselves struggling with a memory and History. that is sometimes difficult to face, or for museums, which Annette Wieviorka (CNRS) in dialogue with Didier Schul- see a work that was previously on public display disappear? mann (Musée national d’art moderne – Centre Georges Pompidou – Kandinsky library) will try to provide some The seminar also focuses on artists and writers inspired answers. today by the themes of spoliation, disappearance and the search for traces. Alongside provenance researchers, art historians and jurists, these creative artists bring to life the memory of the men and women who were defrauded; they retrace and revive the history of the property and its former owners in a different way.

5 NEWS September 2020 – N°7

BERATENDE KOMMISSION SPOLIATION ADVISORY PANEL

Personalia In the UK, most major museums and galleries have now In August, Gesa Vietzen joined the team of the secretariat reopened with appropriate health and safety measures in of the Beratende Kommission im Zusammenhang mit der place but the situation remains fluid. Rückgabe NS-verfolgungsbedingt entzogenen Kulturguts, insbesondere aus jüdischem Besitz. She is responsible for As featured in the May 2020 Newsletter, to empower the preparation, implementation and follow-up of com- smaller and regional museums to carry out provenance mission meetings. She also assists with her expertise as an research, the Spoliation Working Group of the National art historian and her experience in provenance research. In Museum Directors’ Council is continuing to develop a the following she would like to introduce herself: Provenance Training programme which will be delivered by curators from the National Gallery, the British Library I was born in 1977 in a small town in North Rhine-Westpha- and the V&A. lia and grew up in Berlin where my family moved shortly afterwards. I was fortunate to experience first-hand the fol- There are currently no cases being considered by the Spo- lowing exciting years in this city. Due to my love for art and liation Advisory Panel. my passion for organization, I decided to study art history and business administration at the Freie Universität Berlin. Cambridge University is planning to hold a conference on This combination of subjects also prompted my interest in 7 and 8 December 2020 entitled “Thinking Provenance, art market studies. In a fortuitous turn, the “Degenerate Thinking Restitution, Workshop”. This is a joint project Art” Research Center was founded at Freie Universität Ber- between Cambridge University and the University of Bonn. lin in 2003, which would enable me to focus on the art trade The conference will look at new developments in the field during National Socialism. and bring together international experts and encourage Europe-wide comparison and exchange. Supported by the Gerda Henkel Foundation, I analyzed the price development of modern German art on the national and international art market from 1925 to 1955. After my PhD, I worked at the Arbeitsstelle für Provenienzrecherche/ -forschung, subsequently converted into the Deutsches Zentrum Kulturgutverluste in 2008.

From that point, the search for Nazi-looted art and the RESTITUTIECOMMISSIE question of restitution determined my professional life. I carried out provenance research for various museums, Two Cases Closed: One Recommendation and but mainly for the Art Collection North Rhine-Westphalia One Binding Opinion in Düsseldorf. During this time, I became aware of the urgent need for further basic research, so I initiated a project In recent months the Dutch Restitutions Committee com- on “Aryanization” in the art market. pleted the handling of two cases. In both of them the Com- mittee received requests arising from the provenance in- In the following, I successfully applied for a junior profes- vestigation conducted by Dutch museums in the context sorship for provenance research at the Department of Art of the Museum Acquisitions since 1933 project. Under this History at the University of Hamburg, which was the first project, which was initiated by the Netherlands Museums of its kind in Germany. Although the experience of bringing Association, individual museums conducted provenance the field of provenance research into the academic world research in order to identify objects with provenances was most inspiring, I could not ignore the opportunity to that indicate looting, confiscation, forced sale or other work for the Beratende Kommission. I’m here now and suspicious circumstances that occurred between 1933 and very much looking forward to my new tasks. the end of the Second World War. The associated website, www.musealeverwervingen.nl, contains images of works of art that are suspected of having been stolen, confiscated or sold under duress between 1933 and 1945. This website lists 173 artworks. Upon request, the Restitutions

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Committee advises with regard to claims to these artworks. will and have the artworks sold at auction was involunta- So far, the Committee has given advice about thirteen art- ry as a result of circumstances directly related to the Nazi works referred to on this website and has recommended regime. The Committee concluded that both objects restitution of seven of them. should be restituted.

Recommendation RC 1.177, issued on 16 March 2020, con- This case also arose from provenance research related to cerned the painting “View in the Woods in the Winter” by the Museum Acquisitions project. After Museum Boijmans Johann Bernard Klombeck and Eugène Joseph Verboeck- van Beuningen’s researchers had come across the suspect hoven. This painting was donated to the Rijksmuseum in provenance of both objects, the museum sought contact 1948. It was included in the Museum Acquisitions website with the lawyer of Vita Israël’s heirs. Hereupon the heirs because the painting’s provenance reconstructed by the and Rotterdam City Council, the legal owner, asked the museum contained the name of a Jewish gallery in Amster- Restitutions Committee in 2019 to issue a binding opini- dam. It was not clear, however, when and how this gallery on. The Committee was able to issue a binding opinion was involved with the painting. After the Minister of Educa- relatively quickly because in 2015 it had issued a binding tion, Culture and Science (OCW) had asked the Committee opinion about a painting from Vita Israël’s collection. for advice about a claim to this painting, the Committee asked the Restitution Expertise Centre (which is part of the The full texts of the recommendation and the binding NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies) opinion are on the Restitutions Committee’s website to conduct an investigation into the painting. This investi- (www.restitutiecommissie.nl/en). gation revealed that between 1921 and 1948 the painting was in the collection of a Dutch private individual, and con- Annual Report sequently there is no longer any reason to designate the painting’s provenance as suspect. The Committee therefo- Every year the Re- re advised the Minister to reject the restitution application. stitutions Committee gives an account of its On 13 July 2020 the Committee issued a binding opinion activities in its annual about two objects from the collection of the Jewish collec- report. The 2019 An- tor Emmanuel Vita Israël (1873–1940). The objects, a bron- nual Report is on the ze situla and a bronze candelabrum, were in the collection Committee’s website. of Museum Boijmans van Beuningen. Vita Israël commit- It contains all the re- ted suicide days after the German invasion of the Nether- commendations and lands on 10 May 1940, as did many others who did not want binding opinions is- to live under the Nazi regime. Vita Israël had a provision sued during the year. included in his will, which was drawn up on 30 June 1939, It also explains Dutch that his collection of antiquities had to be auctioned off restitution policy and within six months of his death. His beneficiaries therefore addresses the chan- had the collection sold at auction in November 1940 at the ges in this policy and Amsterdam auctioneers Frederik Muller & Co. The cande- their implications. labrum and situla were among the items auctioned off. The The report further- Committee assumed that Vita Israël’s suicide was promp- more mentions a number of meetings in the Netherlands ted by the German invasion. The Committee took the view and other countries about the restitution of Nazi looted that, in conjunction with the cause of death, the obligation art and describes international developments. The re- on the heirs to execute the aforementioned provision in his port ends with a quantitative overview of the recommendations and binding opinions issued by the Restitutions Committee since 2002.

The report can be perused on the Committee’s website. A printed copy can be requested from the Committee’s office ([email protected] or +31 70 3765992).

Bronze candelabrum 7 September 2020 – N°7 CASE STUDIES HANS VON MARÉES, UHLANS ON THE MARCH

Max Stern was only at the beginning of his career when remaining works had been auctioned at Lempertz in Colo- he was targeted by Nazi persecution. Born in Mönchen- gne. Stern had to leave 22 works of art behind in Germany. gladbach in 1904, he studied art history in Bonn and sub- Another 19 works he had intended to take with him were sequently began working in his father’s gallery in 1928. In confiscated by the Gestapo. Additionally, three paintings 1930, he completed his doctoral thesis on the life and work were seized by the Prüfungsstelle jüdischer Auswanderer of Düsseldorf painter Johann Peter Langer. In 1934 – at (Review authority for Jewish emigrants) and delivered to only 30 years of age – the death of his father left him to the Städtische Kunsthalle Düsseldorf. run the gallery on his own. By that time, the business had earned an extraordinary reputation, organized highly suc- In London, Stern initially worked for a gallery his sister had cessful exhibits and auctions, and operated at one of the founded there with a business associate. Their mother, still finest locations in Düsseldorf. in Germany at this point, received the necessary emigra- tion visa in 1939 in return for the usual exorbitant sums of Repression by the Nazi regime started immediately after money, for which Stern primarily had to use the proceeds Hitler took office. An auction planned for 18 March 1933 from the sale of his Düsseldorf residence. After the begin- had to be canceled at short notice because just one week ning of the war, he was interned. On 19 November 1939, prior, an auction by the competing Flechtheim gallery had his German citizenship was revoked. A year later, he emig- been forcibly terminated by the “Kampfbund der deut- rated to Canada but was interned there again, this time for schen Kultur” (Militant League for German Culture) under nearly two years. Starting in 1942, he worked in Montreal NS chief ideologist Alfred Rosenberg. Two weeks later, du- at Dominion Gallery, which he bought in 1947 and soon ex- ring the boycotts launched across the Reich, the windows panded into a center for modern art. Stern’s success was of the gallery were defaced with antisemitic slogans. The phenomenal. He supported many young Canadian artists “Gesetz zur Beseitigung der Mißstände im Versteigerer- and donated numerous works from his private collection gewerbe” (Law to combat abuses in the auction trade) of 7 to institutions in North America and Israel. He died high- August 1933 banned all further auctions. Shortly thereafter, ly decorated in Paris in 1987. The lion’s share of his esta- the Reichskulturkammer (Reich Chamber of Culture) was te went to McGill University and Concordia University in founded, and membership in the association was made a Montreal and Hebrew University in Jerusalem, who jointly mandatory prerequisite for art dealers. Through the me- established the Max Stern Art Restitution Project. The aim diation of the Bund Deutscher Kunst- und Antiquitäten- of the project is to identify, locate and claim the works händler (Association of German Arts and Antiques Dealers), Stern lost starting in 1935. Stern was initially granted membership. After the association was dissolved, however, he was refused admittance On 24 June 1936, Stern sold the painting “Uhlans on the to the Reichskulturkammer on 29 August 1935 because of March” by Hans von Marées at his gallery. It is a small oil his Jewish heritage, and he was banned from his profes- painting the artist had created in 1859, taking up the then sion. Two weeks later, the Nuremberg Race Laws went into popular genre of paintings involving soldiers and horses. effect. Stern sold it for 2,250 Reichsmark – 250 less than he had hoped – to a Düsseldorf business man, who also bought The Reichskulturkammer now demanded that Stern four other paintings from him along with the Marées. The “dissolve or regroup” his business within four weeks. Stern painting was part of various private collections before the managed to extend this deadline several times; on the one Bavarian State Painting Collections acquired it in 1986. hand, he could present interested buyers, meaning an ex- From there, Max Stern’s heirs demanded its return in 2015. tension of the deadline appeared profitable, and on the Because the two parties could not reach consensus, they other hand, the regime was concerned that an overly hasty agreed to submit the case to the Advisory Commission. dissolution of large galleries would cause uncontrollable The Commission recommended restitution of the painting economic damage. The gallery finally closed in 1937. In on 25 June 2019, subject to two conditions. For one, the March, Stern sold the buildings housing the gallery and painting could not be sold in the next ten years so that in his family’s residence. The gallery was permanently closed case a primary injured party appeared, it could be released on 15 December; eight days later, he was able to escape to that party. The second stipulation states that if new in- to London via Paris. Just before that point, most of the sights opposing restitution of the painting were to emerge 8 Hans von Marées,“Uhlans on the March“ (1859) in the next ten years as part of further research efforts, the result of persecution”, all the more so when taking into restitution would have to be reversed. account the date of the sale, meaning the months after the Nuremberg Race Laws, in particular since Stern had The Commission assumed that Stern had sold under pres- received his professional ban just before that point, alt- sure from the National Socialist regime. Since the contes- hough it was not yet legally binding. In the Commission’s ted painting was sold in June of 1936, at a point in time estimate, Stern knew that taking legal action against when the Nuremberg Race Laws had already been in effect it would prove futile. In light of all this, the question for more than half a year, all circumstances indicated the whether the sale price was adequate can be conside- sale had been a result of Nazi persecution. This assumpti- red moot; furthermore, there is no evidence whatsoever on could only have been disproved with concrete evidence that Stern was able to freely dispose of the proceeds. that the sale “in its essential nature would have taken place even without the National Socialist rule”, that the seller However, how Stern himself came to have the painting in received an adequate price, and that he was able to freely his possession remains unclear. Proven provenance was dispose of the proceeds. The Commission felt that the op- only on record until about 1930; until then, the painting posing party was not able to produce such evidence. After was in the possession of Berlin art dealer Hans Wend- the National Socialists’ rise to power, the Commission sta- land – later one of the key dealers in looted art in occup- ted, Max Stern was not able to conduct normal business ied France – who was forced to sell large parts of his own transactions, explicitly referring also to the time before collection after the world economic crisis. A direct sale by 1935. It could be assumed that Jewish art dealers “intel- Wendland to Stern appeared very unlikely, since the pain- ligently and attentively” watched the social and political de- ting did not appear in Stern’s customer records until 1936. velopments and therefore anticipated severe restrictions of Further, it was not possible to determine whether Stern their activities as early as 1933. Especially in the Stern case, sold the “Uhlans on the March” as a commission agent or it is stated, there were sufficient indications of a massive as its owner. Occasioned by a restitution proceeding, Stern increase in repressive measures: the short-term cancella- stated generally in 1959 that until the auction ban in 1934, tion of his planned auction of 18 March 1933, the country- the “overwhelming majority” of his stock were commissi- wide boycott in April, and finally the “Gesetz zur Besei- oned pieces. In a letter to his German attorney – also dated tigung der Mißstände im Versteigerergewerbe” (Law to 1959 – he confirmed this tendency for the period from 1934 combat abuses in the auctioneer trade) of 7 August to 1937. In the applicants’ view, this last letter was not per- which, while it did not explicitly target Jewish auctioneers, missible evidence, as the correspondence between Stern nevertheless called for “orderly” commerce, opening and his attorney was subject to attorney-client privilege. the flood gates for the National Socialist ideology. “Even The Advisory Commission did not concur. Attorney-client independently of the sale date”, the Commission stated, privilege does not have absolute applicability, all secre- the sale of the Marées must therefore be considered “a cy obligations under archival regulations have expired, 9 CASE STUDIES September 2020 – N°7 and it cannot be conceived why, in a proceeding that if it was his own possession, should not have been offered serves to find a “just and fair” solution, such highly- rele for auction even before 1933. The price of 2,250 Reichsmark vant pieces of evidence should be allowed to be exclu- Stern received was adequate, the opinion states, and there ded. Thus, the circumstances prompted the Commission is no evidence that he was not able to freely dispose of the to recommend restitution only with the stipulation of a proceeds. He financed his mother’s escape by selling the ten-year selling prohibition so that restitution to a pos- house in Düsseldorf; the business activities of this time are sible primarily entitled party would not be thwarted. In not included in the list of incurred damages he compiled addition, the Commission recommended unrestricted after the war, or in any other correspondence. In summary, access to the estate and the future consideration of new the dissenting opinion asserts, a fair and just solution could insights that might arise from researching this estate. also have consisted of rejecting the restitution demand. The recommendation of the Advisory Commission is re- This recommendation was approved by the necessary two- markable mainly for two reasons. First, the Commission thirds majority of Commission members. Even though the has opened the door to a more generous application of result constituted a compromise, representatives of a mi- the assumption of “seizure due to Nazi persecution” with nority were so strongly opposed to it that – for the first time regard to the years 1933 and 1934. This would not have in the Commission’s history – they submitted a dissenting been necessary for the results that were found, as for the opinion, presenting their own view of what a “fair and just” relevant period from June 1936 onward, the assumption solution could have been. It asserts that, in general, Jewish of confiscation due to Nazi persecution applies anyway. art dealers were indeed able to practice “orderly and custo- Second, the Commission has significantly refined the in- mary commerce” even after 1933, that the boycott of 1933 struments at its disposal compared to what was customa- was a failure, and that the two years until the Nuremberg ry in previous recommendations. According to Article 6 of Race Laws were a “relatively calm period” with regard to its rules of procedure, the Commission is not limited to a antisemitic persecution campaigns. In Stern’s case, the mere Yes/No decision but can determine other conditions opinion further states, it must even be assumed that he and measures relatively freely. It did so in this case by re- was able to practice orderly commerce until 1937. He al- commending that the estate be opened and by imposing legedly perceived the National Socialist era as a temporary the measure that new research results could possibly lead phenomenon, which is why he was interested in selling the to a revision of the recommendation. gallery to a trustee so he could continue to operate it after- ward. He is said to have continued to conduct sales exhi- Benjamin Lahusen bits with some success in 1934 and 1935 and was thus not Head of the office of the Advisory Commission particularly hampered by the auction ban; with regard to the Marées, this was all the more true because the painting,

SPOLIATION ADVISORY PANEL: A GOTHIC RELIEF IN IVORY IN THE POSSESSION OF THE ASHMOLEAN MUSEUM, OXFORD

In 2016, the Spoliation Advisory Panel considered a claim substantial villa to the Sicherheitsdienst of the SS at well by the heirs of Gerta Silberberg for a rare secular Gothic below market price, and sold the majority of their artworks ivory relief panel showing a man and woman playing chess. at several auctions in the Paul Graupe auction house in The relief was believed to be of French origin and from the 1935 and 1936. This included the ivory. fourteenth century. The ivory was in the possession of the Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology, University of The Spoliation Advisory Panel made enquiries regarding Oxford. The ivory had come to the Ashmolean Museum as whether any post-War compensation had been paid to part of a bequest. The Museum promptly reported their the Silberberg Estate. These enquiries disclosed that no identification of the Work. compensation was paid for the loss of the art collection, although the family had received compensation for the Max Silberberg, a German Jewish businessman, had as- incarceration of the Silberbergs and family’s loss of econo- sembled a substantial collection of art, particularly French. mic prospects. In 1933, the Jewish community in Breslau, the family home, The lawyers for the Estate sought to argue that Max was an early target for brutality and oppression by the Silberberg was forced to sell the ivory because of persecu- Nazis. In 1935, Max Silberberg was forced to sell his tion and because, following the compulsory purchase of 10 September 2020 – N°7

balance of probabilities, it was not a sale at an undervalue. The Panel was also satisfied that Max Silberberg received the proceeds of the sale.

Files obtained from the German Federal Office for Central Services and Unresolved Property Issues also suggested that personal financial difficulties of Max Silberberg may have caused the sale of many of the items in the collection. The Panel found no evidence of any discriminatory or expropriatory taxes or charges being levied on Max Silber- berg in 1935. The Panel concluded that whilst the coming to power of the Nazis must have had an adverse effect on the family, there is considerable evidence that Max Silber- berg was in personal financial difficulties, necessitating the sale of his art collection. The Panel’s final conclusion was therefore that the moral claim for the return of the ivory was insufficiently strong to warrant a recommendation of restitution or the making of an ex gratia payment. However, the Panel recommended Gothic relief in ivory the display alongside the Work, wherever it is, and in what- ever medium, of an account of the history of the Work in the family villa by the SS and having to move to a small the collection of its former owner during the Nazi era, and apartment, he was forced to sell his artworks. While the his tragic fate and that of his wife. Panel found this to be a strong argument regarding the collection as a whole, the ivory is a tiny object and it might The Panel’s full report can be found here: be considered that if one was forced to move from a large https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/report-of- house to a small apartment that it is just the sort of item the-spoliation-advisory-panel-in-respect-of-a-gothic-reli- from one’s collection that one would have kept. ef-in-ivory-now-in-the-possession-of-the-ashmolean-museum-oxford The historical view of the Paul Graupe sales of this period is still evolving. Given the rarity of the piece it was difficult to establish comparables but the Panel found no evidence that the ivory was undervalued and concluded that, on the REPORTS PROVENANCE RESEARCH DAY

Provenance Research Day was inaugurated in 2019 by the work of the Arbeitskreis members as part of a steadily Arbeitskreis Provenienzforschung e.V. and is coordinated growing, highly committed and internationally networked by the Provenance Research Day Working Group (AG TdP). research community, unparalleled in the world of art It takes place annually throughout the world on the second and culture. Wednesday in April. Provenance Research Day is open to all institutions con- ducting provenance research or participating in academic discussion of the subject. This can include research on Background and aim cultural objects in a colonial context, items confiscated by The central aim of this action day is to present and com- the Nazis, looted or stolen works or works salvaged when municate provenance research as an academic discipline fleeing from persecution, items seized in the Soviet occu- with high social and political relevance and responsibility. pation zone/East Germany, research on institutional col- This temporary collaboration between many institutions lection policy and history, and other contexts, such as the and researchers worldwide gives a very clear picture of art market or auction houses. 11 REPORTS September 2020 – N°7

Contributions can be in the form of events on the occasion TdPdigital 2020 of restitutions, lectures and discussions, workshops, spe- cial or small exhibitions, book presentations, consultations By 8 April 2020, forty-four institutions from Germany (35), or guided tours or presentations of individual cases (e.g., Austria (3), Switzerland (2) and the USA (4) had registe- dedicated showcases). The diverse media and activities are red their digital contributions. During the day itself, the- used to explain the complexities of provenance research re were also a large number of international tweets (par- and to make them accessible to a wide public and to heigh- ticularly from the USA, but also from Brazil and Poland), ten public and media awareness of the issues involved. All demonstrating the worldwide solidarity and support for participating institutions and their actions are published be- the day. Under the hashtag #TagderProvenienzforschung, forehand on the Arbeitskreis Provenienzforschung e.V. web- the Arbeitskreis received 55,000 Twitter impressions and site: https://www.arbeitskreis-provenienzforschung.org/ 876 profile visits. An initiative by our colleagues in the project “Nazi looted art in the SLUB – acquisitions after 1945” at the Saxon Sta- History te Library – State and University Library Dresden (SLUB) The idea of a Provenance Research Day was proposed and Sebastian Finsterwalder (Berlin) deserves particular by art historian Susanne Knuth at the annual meeting of mention. They made their online platform RETOUR – Frei- the Arbeitskreis Provenienzforschung e.V. in Berlin on 14 er Blog für Provenienzforschende available to the com- November 2018. Together with the art historians Brigit- munity at short notice for Provenance Research Day and te Reuter and Sven Pabstmann, she established the Pro- invited contributors to air their thoughts in short essays. venance Research Day Working Group on that same day. Forty-six provenance researchers responded to this spon- Over eighty museums, libraries, archives and auction hou- taneous invitation (see https://retour.hypotheses.org/ ses in Germany, Austria, the United Kingdom, Switzerland tag-der-provenienzforschung-international-day-of-prove- and the Netherlands took part in the first Provenance nance-research-2020). Although the COVID-19 pandemic Research Day on 10 April 2019. Provenance researchers has proved to be a stressful challenge, the active network outside Europe also supported the event in social media, of provenance researchers has shown its potential for particularly on Twitter under the hashtag #TagderProveni- celebrating this important day in spite of all obstacles. We enzforschung. are looking forward to the third Provenance Research Day on 14 April 2021. Challenges during the corona crisis Contact: Around 100 institutions had registered to take part in the AG Tag der Provenienzforschung second Provenance Research Day with a view to giving an Team: Susanne Knuth (Rostock Cultural History Museum), insight into their work through events and activities and to Sven Pabstmann (Saxony-Anhalt Museum Association), drawing attention to the diverse questions and results of Brigitte Reuter (Kunsthalle Bremen) investigations into the provenance of objects and collections. The powerful echo in Germany, Austria, Switzerland Address: and the USA is a clear indication of the wide appeal of this Arbeitskreis Provenienzforschung e.V. day and the need for international discussion. c/o Brigitte Reineke The vast majority of the 112 activities were planned as live Deutsches Historisches Museum public events, and only nine were to take place in a soci- Unter den Linden 2 al media framework. Because of the measures to prevent D-10117 Berlin the spread of the coronavirus, museums, libraries, archives and universities were temporarily closed from mid- E-mail: March 2020, however, and the events had to be cancelled. tag-der-provenienzforschung@arbeitskreis-provenienz- As a result, Provenance Research Day could not take forschung.org place in the planned form. The board of the Arbeitskreis Provenienzforschung and the AG TdP therefore encou- Website: raged researchers to find other digital platforms so as to https://www.arbeitskreis-provenienzforschung.org/index. be able nevertheless to make an active contribution to php?id=arbeitsgruppe-tag-der-provenienzforschung Provenance Research Day. We are pleased to announce that within a very short time many participants devised Twitter: creative ways of “digitizing” their events and of taking part #TagderProvenienzforschung in this important day after all. 12 REPORTS September 2020 – N°7

REMEMBRANCE, RESTITUTION AND HISTORICAL RESPONSIBILITY A SUMMARY OF PROVENANCE RESEARCH AT THE UNIVERSITY OF VIENNA

Austrian libraries benefited during the Nazi era from the the necessary extension to include the years from 1933 to acquisition of seized libraries from associations or schools 1938 has only been investigated in some specialist libraries, that had been forced to close and from expropriations or the examination period has now been extended to include forced sales by private individuals. It had already been the time long after the end of the Second World War. possible from 1933 to buy antiques cheaply from Nazi Germany. After the annexation of Austria in 1938, a book First of all, it was necessary to consider indirect acqui- collection and distribution centre (Büchersortierungsstel- sitions from the antiques business sector. Moreover, le) was established in Vienna to handle the inventories of Vienna University Library had accepted over 151,000 publishing companies and libraries that had been closed volumes from the book collection and distribution cen- down. Vienna University Library also profited from these tre mentioned above, whose task from 1949 to 1951 was dubious acquisitions. to handle “ownerless” looted books. In Vienna University Library, these items were known as the Tanzenberg Since the 1980s, the University of Vienna has increa- collection. Although the name refers to Tanzenberg Abbey singly fulfilled its obligation to take a critical look, in both in Carinthia, which in 1944 and 1945 housed the central its teaching and research activities, at its own history in the library of the “Hohe Schule”, the NSDAP’s own training years from 1933 to 1945 and thereafter. Today the universi- school, these books come from various sources, including ty recognizes its role and complicity in the acts of the Nazi the Vienna Gestapo library and the Dorotheum. The distri- regime. Provenance research in Vienna University Library bution of the books was decided in an agreement between is part of the diverse research and memory projects at the the Republic of Austria, the Vienna Jewish Community University of Vienna and makes an active contribution to (IKG) and the Jewish National and University Library in Je- recalling the victims of Nazism. rusalem (JNUL) in November 1955, with 60 per cent going to Vienna University Library and 40 per cent to the JNUL. The agreement of the collection centre for heirless property (Sammelstelle für erbloses Vermögen) was not obtained until 1960, and the books were included in the inventory of Vienna University Library for several decades. Attempts to identify the original owners of these items held in trust were not made until Nazi provenance research was undertaken.

A few items were restituted in the post-war years in cases Acquisition note in a book allocated by the Gestapo in 1942 when survivors themselves made claims to Vienna Univer- © Vienna University Library sity Library. However, there was too little sense of injus- tice in the library management for it to actively attempt Systematic record-keeping and extension of restitution, as the priority lay in the recuperation of “war research losses” as a result of air raids or storage elsewhere. The In 2004, Vienna University Library was the first in Austria looted books and those acquired after the war were seen to embark on a systematic examination and research into as compensation for those losses. its own acquisitions policy. The aim was to check first in the Main Library and then from 2005 in the specialist and In the course of research, the Vienna University Archi- department libraries for suspect acquisitions in the years ve as an independent collection also became a focus of from 1938 to 1945. The acquisition period and scope were provenance research at Vienna University Library. At the soon widened. request of the university management, in autumn 2007 the provenance research was extended to the University Between 2004 and 2009 over 400,000 books acquired by of Vienna Archive. The project gave rise to the establish- the university libraries (Main Library and specialist librari- ment in 2010 of a permanent department and to a widen- es) in the period in question were investigated. The investi- ing of the scope of investigation, i.e., as well as the library gation does not only cover items acquired until 1945. While and archives, the university’s research collections became 13 REPORTS September 2020 – N°7

an increasing focus of provenance research. This process era – provenance research and library history; 2013: Guido was the opposite of the approach by the federal museums, Adler’s legacy – restitution and remembrance at the Uni- which – with the exception of the Austrian National Library versity of Vienna; 2017: Acquisition and storage “in trust” – started with artworks and only gradually turned to looted – an international and interdisciplinary view), the publica- books in the museum libraries. In 2019, reorganising the tion of the conference proceedings (peer reviewed and provenance research activities led to the establishment open access) and other academic publications. of a dedicated staff unit of Vienna University Library and Archive Services. Results So far, research has revealed a tight interweaving network National and international networking both inside and outside the university of persons, institu- Since it began operating, the staff unit responsible for tes, libraries, collections, and the archives of the University provenance research has cooperated with national and of Vienna. As a result of the historical evolution of a multi- international institutions and organizations. This layered library system between 1933 and 1945, the precise means that the provenance research at Vienna University number of libraries and book collections at the university Library is also represented in the Commission for Prove- can no longer be determined today. Apart from Vienna nance Research. Although the Universities Act of 2002 University Library (now Main Library) there were institute states that Austrian university libraries are no longer and department libraries, but also private libraries stored directly responsible to a federal ministry, the “collections on the university premises and various book collections. in university libraries that for historical, artistic or other The Philosophy Faculty alone had at least fifty-one library cultural or academic reasons form a whole remain the pro- collections. perty of the state” (BGBl. I No. 120/2002, section 139, para. 4). For Vienna University Library this meant that books published before 1800 became the property of the state while title to books published afterwards was transferred to the University of Vienna. The search for heirs is carried out with the support of the Department for Restitution Affairs of the IKG and the National Fund of the Republic of Austria for Victims of National Socialism.

In 2008, the Austrian Association of Librarians established a provenance research working group headed by provenance researchers at Vienna University Library. In 2013, this working group helped to establish the Provenance Research & Restitution – Libraries working group founded in Germany. It also collaborates with the relevant provenance research committees of the Austrian Association of Libraries. The tagging of the restituted works in the public Pia Schölnberger and Markus Stumpf at the presentation of the catalogue as “Stolpersteine” (stumbling blocks) – indicating Lexicon of Austrian Provenance Research at the University of the looting by the Nazis and the original owners – also ma- Vienna Contemporary History Library, Vienna 2019 kes an important contribution to remembrance. Even after restitution, this information can be searched and viewed. Although the systematic search and research into the university’s own acquisition policy has already produced The staff unit also heightens awareness both internally some results, for many academic subjects there are no and externally through popular and easily accessible ac- critical works on the institutional history to provide a solid tivities such as a “bullshit bingo” (https://phaidra.univie. basis for classifying the information obtained. Neverthe- ac.at/o:907617) or a kind of parking disc with different less, results have been achieved with the Main Library and stamps (see animation on Facebook https://www.face- the English, European Ethnology, Jewish Studies, Art His- book.com/ub.wien/videos/3619154214777365/). It has been tory, Music, Near Eastern Studies, Philosophy, Psychology, making contributions to international research through Romance Studies and Theatre Studies Libraries, the Uni- various national and international exhibitions and interna- versity of Vienna Archive and collections from the Egyp- tional academic conferences (2008: Libraries in the Nazi tology, Music and Zoology Departments. In this way, the

14 REPORTS September 2020 – N°7

provenance research of Vienna University Library has not Website of the NS-Provenienzforschung der Vereinigung only contributed to research into National Socialism in the Österreichischer Bibliothekarinnen und Bibliothekare field of looted cultural items but also added to the under- (VÖB) working group: https://www.univie.ac.at/voeb/kom- standing of the history of universities during that period. missionen/ag-ns-provenienzforschung/

The first restitutions took place in 2009, and by the end For provenance research in the Österreichischer Bibliothe- of 2019, twenty-six cases at Vienna University Library kenverbund, see e.g. a reference in the detailed bibliogra- involving 2,260 printed items, five plaster casts and one phical data regarding the Brüder Suschitzky restitution at fractional literary estate had been dealt with. In a further https://permalink.obvsg.at/AC03003138 fourteen cases heirs are being sought, and thirty-three For further information on this restitution, see Markus suspicious cases turned out to legitimate acquisitions. In Stumpf, Regina Zodl, Olivia Kaiser, Johannes Koll, “Über- five further cases, additional information is required to gabe an die Erben der Buchhandlung ‘Brüder Suschitzky’”, establish the acquisition history, and these objects have in Mitteilungen der VÖB 72 (2019), No. 2, pp. 578–84, DOI: been entered in the National Fund art database for that https://doi.org/10.31263/voebm.v72i2.2840 reason. Research has begun on a further eighty-seven cases and there are likely to be many more. The bibliographical details of the literature mentioned in this text can be found at https://bibliothek.univie.ac.at/ provenienzforschung-publikationen.html Summary Provenance research, restitution and the publication Markus Stumpf (1969) works as a librarian at Vienna Uni- of the results are like mosaic stones in the present-day versity Library, and as a historian and as a provenance commemorative culture at the University of Vienna. The researcher. He heads the Contemporary History Library histories inherent in the researched books, archives and and the provenance research of the University of Vienna. objects point to persons or institutions whose right to exis- He is also board member of the Austrian Library Associati- tence was extinguished by the Nazi regime and who were on and research fellow in the Department of Contempora- subsequently expropriated or forced to close, persecut- ry History at the University of Vienna. ed and exterminated. The return of looted cultural items may therefore be seen as an attempt by the University of Contact Vienna to achieve a “just and fair” solution in the sense of Provenance Research at Vienna University Library the Washington Principles. University of Vienna c/o Contemporary History Library Campus of the University of Vienna Links Spitalgasse 2-4, Hof 1.12 Website of provenance research at the University of 1090 Vienna, Austria Vienna library: https://bibliothek.univie.ac.at/provenienz- T: +43-1-4277-16710 forschung-ergebnisse.html E-mail: [email protected]

IDAC – LAW ART CULTURE INSTITUTE

Christine Ferrari-Breeur, head of the nuelle Polack, PhD in art history as leader, to organize a IDAC Institut Droit Art Culture (Law seminar and workshop about provenance research this year. Art Culture Institute) at the University Both museums in Lyon, Musée des Beaux-Arts and Mu- of Jean Moulin Lyon III and manager of sée Gadagne, have agreed, as partners, to present some the master’s degree Droit et Fiscalité of their MNR (Musées nationaux récupération) and OAR du Marché de l’Art (Law and Art Mar- (Objets d’art recuperation) artworks. During several ket Taxation), decided for the first time sessions, the students will study the tracing of these in the history of a law master’s degree artworks and investigate their provenance. in France, in cooperation with Emma- Christine Ferrari-Breeur 15 REPORTS September 2020 – N°7

Ferrari-Breeur believes that there is an urgent need to repeated, as other museums in the region have already teach provenance research to future jurists. “The more voluntarily contacted Ferrari-Breeur and would like to start time passes, the more difficult it will be to gather evidence provenance research on their MNR artworks. and property; families are dispersed, especially geogra- phically, and the memory of the artworks is fading.” But All the works studied can be found in the Rose Valland there is also a real concern for legal certainty because of database of the French Ministry of Culture: the need to be sure of the origins of the artworks. Currently https://www.pop.culture.gouv.fr there is an obligation to due diligence, which applies to all professionals (public and private) in the sector as well as to potential purchasers, even non-professionals.

Twenty students each year will be able to conduct provenance research on MNR artworks. The seminar could be

MNR 233 MNR 632 OAR 284 MNR 823 MNR 215 Eugène Boudin Ubaldo Gandolfi Anonymous (Mougenot?) François Boucher Edgar Degas The Port of Deauville Study of a Woman’s Reed dance organ The Light of the World Four Dancers in Green Head

UMA

The Universal Museum of Art, UMA, is a virtual reality mu- Online since 5 September 2018, “The Spoils of War, Reco- seum which collaborates with cultural institutions to carry vering Looted Artworks from the Second World War” was out unique exhibitions, available online and for free. UMA’s one of the first online exhibitions. The founders of the Ho- ideal is the digital democratization of culture: it wants to locaust Art Restitution Project (HARP, Washington DC), facilitate access to art, familiarize audiences with muse- Marc J. Masurovsky (Research Director) and Ori Z. Soltes ums, showcase collections and entertain by devising enter- (Goldman Professorial Lecturer in Theology and Fine Arts, taining and immersive exhibitions in a virtual setting. Georgetown University) agreed to curate the exhibition.

Most museum collections are kept in storage, inaccessible UMA wished to gather the greatest masterpieces stolen by to the public. By using virtual reality, museums can go be- the Nazis, creating an unprecedented and unique exhibiti- yond these practical constraints. UMA’s aim is not to re- on. By using virtual reality, it seeks to raise public aware- place museums but to make known their existence and ness and to help identify the artworks by circulating them relevance today. Its role is to centralize and complement globally. existing museums. https://uma-expo-legacy.s3.amazonaws.com/spoils_of_ There are currently twelve exhibitions online, and another war/index.html four are planned. One of the future aims of UMA is to de- vise an educational project by offering virtual tours in line with French and foreign school programmes.

16 September 2020 – N°7 FIELD REPORT AFTER THE FAMOUS CASES – PROVENANCE RESEARCH AND THE SOCIOLOGICAL SHIFT

Provenance research in Austria is mainly associated with Commission for Provenance Research dossiers of suspi- famous collections illegally expropriated during the Nazi cious acquisitions, as defined by the Art Restitution Act, era, such as those of Alphonse and Louis Rothschild, Oskar must rely increasingly on linking the trail of clues, which Bondy or Adele Bloch-Bauer and with artworks by promi- obviously makes it more difficult to conduct and validate nent artists such as Gustav Klimt or Egon Schiele. Although the underlying research. objects expropriated by the Nazis from those renowned collections still turn up (and will continue to do so) in fe- One possible approach to this challenge is provided by deral collections – see the article in Newsletter 6/2020 on Section 4a, para. 2, of the Austrian Art Restitution Act. This the restitution of Schiele’s Four Trees to the heirs of Josef defines the task of the Commission for Provenance Re- Morgenstern – after more than twenty years of work by search, among other things, as “research into the histori- the Commission for Provenance Research the majority of cal circumstances, in so far as this could be of significance these famous cases appear to have been extensively dealt for determining the provenance and for recommendations with. What remains are cases that seem less glamorous but by the committee”. This extends the previous definition of are at least as numerous and no less relevant. But does this its task in Section 4a, para. 1, as merely “the description of superficially stated change really have an impact- oncur the provenance of objects designated in Section 1”. Sec- rent provenance research or, apart from a reduced media tion 4a, para. 2, offers scope for a systematic, methodical interest, is everything as it was before? approach that is not limited merely to a strict description of the provenance but can also take a wider targeted The time after the famous cases has seen a shift in prove- analytical view of the historical context. nance research in Austria in terms both of the objects and, closely connected, of the sociological composition of the The degree to which historical information and hence the group(s) being investigated. Not only unique paintings, approach to research is affected by the social status of watercolours and drawings are the objects of research the collectors and the collection objects can be illustra- but also mass-produced prints or books. The lower value ted by looking at the case of the collector’s stamp “Baurat of these art objects has engendered a sociological shift Stiassny”. Whereas a large amount of research and within the research agenda. It has moved increasingly from the elite circle of prominent actors in the art and culture scene, who are well-documented in historical sources, towards middle-class collectors and artisans, and small and medium-sized dealers, whose collections and trade also included applied art objects, prints, antiques, furniture, clocks and watches, jewellery, books and magazines.

This circumstance produces a dual challenge for the methodology. There is a lack of reliable historical sources in terms both of the biographies of the persons being investigated and of the information about the objects, which are often referred to only as job lots. It is rare for photo- graphs to exist of these less valuable objects, and if so they tend to have been taken by chance. Detailed descriptions in collection inventories or auction catalogues to assist in subsequent identification are usually absent. While the Engraving with provenance “Sammlung Baurat Stiassny”: discovery of substantive evidence – a “smoking gun”, so Maarten van Heemskerck (design), Philips Galle (engraver), The to speak – can already be difficult with famous cases, it Destruction of the Altar in Bethel and the Exhumation of Bones is even more of an exception with less prominent objects from the Graves, c. 1569, Graphic Collection of the Academy of and persons. As a result, the written descriptions in the Fine Arts, Vienna, DG 56.889 17 FIELD REPORT September 2020 – N°7 publications exist on the above-mentioned famous art biographical details and the reconstruction of collections collections, nothing was found initially in connection with are called for. Where the necessary information cannot the stamp “Sammlung Baurat Stiassny”, which appeared already be found in the available research literature on Nazi on several prints in the inventory of the Graphic Collec- persecution and asset expropriation, this requires some tion at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. It was only after underlying research. This step “back” to the basics also additional intensive research that indications were found means that greater attention is paid to an analysis of the that the objects came from the hitherto unknown but ex- networks created during the Nazi era and the expropriati- tensive graphic collection and private library of Wilhelm on processes established by them, within which the victims Stiassny, an architect and one of the main instigators were forced to operate. The research needs to be more in- of the first Jewish Museum Vienna. He died in 1910 and ter-institutional and it is more meticulous and painstaking, bequeathed the art collection and library to his only son as it operates at a micro-sociological level that requires the Sigmund Stiassny. The life of Wilhelm Stiassny, a prominent incorporation of its results in contemporary sociological personality in turn-of-the-century Vienna, is well docu- and sociopolitical meta-structures. After the famous cases, mented, but his son, a member of the upper-middle class provenance research thus offers the possibility of making and a gynaecologist with an office in the centre of Vienna, new contributions to the Nazi society research conduc- is mentioned only in passing in both current historiography ted by the likes of Michael Wild or Frank Bajohr and at the and in documentation of the time. Because of Sigmund same time of further consolidating the above-mentioned Stiassny’s les- trail of clues. In doing so, pursuant to the task that the law ser prominence, demands of the Commission for Provenance Research, the traces of the main aim will be to improve the reliability of information graphic collec- about the historical changes in ownership and property so tion and library as to provide as solid a basis as possible for decision and became more difficult to find. While they had evaluation by the Austrian Art Restitution Advisory Board, been mentioned occasionally in the media during which is now in the third decade of its existence. Wilhelm Stiassny’s lifetime, there was no media coverage in the following decades. Thanks to wide-ranging biographi- The concluding question to ask is whether the further de- cal and collection research, including not only the archive velopment of research methods, including the increasing of the Academy of Fine Arts but also source material from degree of registration, digitization and networking of other institutions such as the archive and picture archive existing historical information, will lead to the reopening of the Austrian National Library, the archives of the Vienna of “cold” provenance research cases or, to put it another Jewish Community (IKG), the Jewish Museum Vienna, the way, whether the completion of one set of famous cases Austria Federal Monuments Authority, the Austrian State will lead to the (re-)opening of others. Archives, the Municipal and Provincial Archives of Vienna, the University of Vienna library and the Lower Austrian Bibliography Provincial Library, as well as extensive online research, the Michael Wildt, Die Ambivalenz des Volkes: Der Nationalso- life of Sigmund Stiassny, his family and their assets were zialismus als Gesellschaftsgeschichte (Berlin, 2019); Frank patchily reconstructed. It was only after a further step that Bajohr, Täterforschung: Ertrag, Probleme und Perspek- placed these events in a historical context – the designa- tiven eines Forschungsansatzes, in Frank Bajohr, Andrea tion of Stiassny as a Jew according to the Nazi legislation Löw, eds., Der Holocaust: Ergebnisse und neue Fragen der and the effects this had on his life after the annexation of Forschung (Frankfurt am Main, 2015), pp. 167–85. Austria to the German Reich – that it was possible to make further assumptions about the possible sale of a large part Konstantin Ferihumer has been working on behalf of the of his assets as a result of Nazi persecution. Commission for Provenance Research at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna since 2016. Since 2018, he has also Since Section 4a, para. 2, of the Art Restitution Act, gives been leading the fundamental research project made pos- provenance research the possibility of expanding beyond sible by the Commission for Provenance Research on the the one-dimensional investigation of the history of indi- “Aryanization” of Viennese watchmakers and jewellers. The vidual objects, the research methodology needs to move research on the provenance of “Baurat Stiassny” should be away from an approach focusing strictly on object histories. completed in 2021 and will be presented then to the Austri- In order to comply with the principles of systematic prove- an Provenance Research Advisory Board for consideration. nance research, a more fundamental approach needs to be taken, where this seems promising, and apart from the description of specific provenance chains, more extensive 18 September 2020 – N°7 ADDENDUM PROVENANCE RESEARCH IN SLOVENIA: AN INTERVIEW WITH BARBARA MUROVEC

The Slovenian art historian Barbara Murovec is a specialist Second, we wanted to understand the appropriation of art in art of the early modern period and twentieth century in for political, nationalistic and propaganda purposes. The Central and South-Eastern Europe. In her specific dealings framework was outstanding: submissions were invited by with provenance research and the EU HERA project Trans- the European Commission within the HERA (Humanities CultAA she has recently experienced a rejection within in the European Research Area) programme on the theme the framework of Slovenian (research) policy, which has “Uses of the Past”. The project was planned in Villa Vigoni, had serious personal consequences. She describes her ex- where researchers from three countries (Germany, Italy, Slo- periences in an interview with Meike Hopp, chairperson of venia) – from the Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte (ZI) in Arbeitskreis Provenienzforschung e.V. Munich, the France Stele Institute of Art History at the Re- search Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts MH: Dear Barbara, the pioneering EU HERA project (ZRC SAZU) in Ljubljana and the Kunsthistorisches Institut TransCultAA (Transfer of Cultural Objects in the Alpe- (KHI) in Florence – organized a workshop. The principal inves- Adria Region in the 20th Century) conducted from Sep- tigator team was already formed in Villa Vigoni, consisting of tember 2016 to October 2019 is the first international pro- Christian Fuhrmeister (ZI Munich) as coordinator, Dona- ject dealing with the transfer of cultural objects between ta Levi (University of Udine), Ljerka Dulibić (Strossmayer Germany, Austria, Italy, Slovenia and Croatia over the Gallery HAZU, Zagreb) and myself (ZRC SAZU, Ljubljana). entire twentieth century. What does provenance research We were happy to be able to bring on board the Austrian signify for you and what are your experiences? Commission for Provenance Research as an associate partner, followed by others, including the Slovenian Research BM: No art historian dealing with movable cultural objects and Documentation Centre JAS. We organized joint archive can ignore provenance research. The history of the places of visits, exhibitions, summer schools, workshops and confe- origin and storage of an artwork is recorded in all museum rences. A jointly compiled collection of archival material re- documentation and catalogue essays. As a researcher in art sulted in an online Source Edition, and in a few months the history of the early modern times concerned with the trans- project monograph will appear in Böhlau Verlag (details of fer of cultural objects, it seems to me sometimes that the the project at https://www.transcultaa.eu/). term provenance (research) has focused too exclusively on confiscations that occurred in the Nazi era. At the same time, MH: What is the significance of the project in terms of I consider it extremely important to properly address one of research into the historical movement of cultural objects the most sensitive and complex aspects of art history, which in Slovenia? is also bound up with other disciplines (history, law, economics, etc.). Art historians can find answers and, together BM: A particular focus of the TransCultAA project was the with politicians, ideally “correct” or at least make up for in- transfer of artworks during the Second World War, when justices. In theory at least this would seem to be desirable. In Slovenia was part of Yugoslavia and was occupied by Italy, practice, however, the answers and interpretations we have Germany and Hungary. I was quite excited at the prospect offered as a result of our systematic research in the project for Slovenia, not only regarding the possibility of networking are apparently not (yet) welcomed by Slovenian politicians with Western researchers, especially for the group of young and stakeholders. Slovenian art historians, but also as an opportunity to make a thorough comparative study of Slovenia’s past and its en- MH: How did the TransCultAA project come about and tire art system in the twentieth century. Expressed in more what is its aim? ambitious terms, I was interested in developing an objective academic approach to the totalitarian appropriation of art BM: The project was designed first to trace and reconstruct and hence of contributing to the democratization of society the history of cultural objects seized in the Alpe-Adria regi- – not in terms of interpreting history but of obtaining a bet- on in the twentieth century, gain insights into displacements, ter understanding of its complexity in order to enable whole in which – apart from artists, art historians, dealers and generations to face up to this trauma. Research about and collectors – authorities and institutions were also involved. insights into the implications of class, nation and ownership I ADDENDUM September 2020 – N°7

questions are just as important for successfully coming to to make a fundamental contribution to establishing prove- terms with the past as the preservation and presentation of nance research into Slovenian collections, what happened records and documentation (e.g. in databases). was that I lost my position first as director of the France Stele Institute of Art History at the ZRC SAZU in Ljubljana MH: In order ultimately to restitute the works of art? and then (in the process of transferring the TransCultAA project to the University of Maribor) as professor at the Institute BM: Of course, the reconstruction of these processes also of Art History in the Philosophy Faculty in Maribor, which I makes it possible to restitute objects, but the priority for me had helped to found in 2009. was to raise public awareness of the role of artworks as (sym- bolic) capital for the Alpe-Adria region. It is only with this MH: Why? And what does that mean for provenance awareness that politicians can adopt laws on these sensitive research in Slovenia? issues and free state institutions of their reluctance to deal with provenance research. To give an idea of this dilemma. In BM: Research into Nazi looted art in Slovenia is problematic 2014 the Slovenian government still reported that there were because of the subsequent Communist regime. Parts of the no artworks in state-owned/public collections that had been Slovenian population still identify – sometimes openly – with seized previously by the Nazi occupying authorities (see Uni- the Communist activities in the first years after the war. In ted States Department of State, The JUST Act Report, March the name of Communism, property and cultural assets were 2020, p. 170). But in fact Nazi looted art from 1941 to 1945 confiscated and nationalized – sometimes with terrible remained in Slovenian museums after the war. The seizures crimes being committed against the owners of artworks, e.g. even continued in 1945, as one totalitarian regime replaced the murder of Ferdinand Attems, owner of one of the most another. This could explain why provenance research was important baroque collections in Bistrica Castle in Slovens- not supported in Slovenia at all, but to claim that there is no ka Bistrica (Windisch Feistritz), to where he had transferred Nazi looted art is patently false. paintings from Graz during the Second World War. Attems was Slovenia’s first doctor of forestry and helped - Slove MH: You intimated earlier that there were problems. What nes during the war. But as a “German” and member of the effect did the situation in Slovenia have on your research Styrian Kulturbund (Cultural Association) he was sentenced project? to forced labour and murdered with his wife and eldest son in winter 1946 by members of the OZNA (Odjeljenje za zaštitu BM: Problems are to be expected in any international pro- naroda / Department for People’s Protection of Commu- ject on an issue as sensitive as this. In Italy, for example nist Yugoslavia). The new government seized his collection, we had difficulties in gaining access to the archive ofthe stored it in the Federal Collection Centre (like the Collec- Soprintendenza archeologia, belle arti e paesaggio del Friuli ting Points in Germany, but with quite an opposite mission Venezia Giulia in Trieste and the documentation stored there and agenda), from where artworks were distributed to the on artworks from churches and public buildings in Sloveni- National Gallery and other Slovenian museums and archives. an Istrian cities (in particular Koper/Capodistria and Piran/ Some might also have ended up in private ownership. Pirano), which in 1940 belonged to Italy. The Italian group headed by Donata Levi was nevertheless able to work ex- MH: Only a tiny fraction of the Jewish population of Slove- tremely successfully, particularly on the transfer of cultural nia survived the Holocaust. What happened to their expro- objects during the First World War and the seizures of cul- priated property? Was there any restitution after the war? tural objects in Trieste. Not only was the close cooperation mutually beneficial, but we also learned how to overcome BM: Jews (and their descendants) were victims of oppressi- problems. The TransCultAA project was received very posi- on twice over in Yugoslavia, first by the Nazis and then by tively in all partner countries. Croatia even made its restric- the Communists. After the war, the few surviving Jews once ted archives accessible. The transnational and cooperative again found themselves among enemies. The collections aspects of our research project also received a lot of reco- seized by the Germans remained in the museums. And the- gnition, for example from the Czech Republic, Serbia, France re was the problem of staff continuity in public institutions. and the USA. Franz Basch/Franjo Baš, director of the municipal museum in Maribor, participated first in the Nazi seizures and then, It was not until 2019 that the project suddenly had serious after the war, obtained/collected artworks seized and natio- consequences for me personally. Whereas I thought the com- nalized by the Communist government. The property of a Jew prehensive archive findings and my knowledge of historical murdered in Auschwitz called Kohnstein was given to Baš mechanisms and continuity would make it possible for me in September 1941. After the war his descendants had no

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access to documentation on the seized works of art. Although from Austria, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzer- they claimed compensation for wartime losses, none of the land, the UK and the USA – but none from Eastern Europe. works were returned, as far as I know, because the details Also no representative from Eastern Europe was invited cited by them in their loss report did not tally with those in to a hearing in the European Parliament in Brussels last the official list of seized objects. Individual cases like this one December on “Cross-border restitution claims of works need to be urgently investigated in order to ascertain why the of art and cultural goods looted in armed conflicts and restitution did not take place and to what extent continuities wars”. What do you think needs to change and what would like the one described above played a role in these processes. you like to see happen to provenance research in Eastern Europe? MH: Against this background and in this complex situation, is it not incredibly difficult to oversee and evaluate the ro- BM: One of the aims of the TransCultAA project was to es- les of the individual actors? tablish networks between Slovenia and current (Western) European provenance research, particularly, of course, with BM: An assessment of the role of actors such as Baš is, of the research in Austria and Germany, who as the two former course, difficult, but it is for that very reason that we should occupying powers were mainly responsible for the transfer be allowed to talk about and investigate it today. But what and looting of artworks during the Second World War. We happened in 2019 with TransCultAA and also with another wanted to create a basis for a European initiative on the important project, the Digitization of Jewish Heritage of Slo- seizures by Communist governments in Eastern Europe (in- venia (research cooperation between Israel and Slovenia), is cluding East Germany) after 1945, comparable to the 1998 a sign of censorship and manipulation of academic research, Washington Principles for Nazi looted art. Here, too, the idea acts that are in fact typical of post-totalitarian regimes. was to maintain a neutral historical “distance” through re- What is almost incomprehensible to me is the silence and search and awareness-raising so as to provide assistance in even cooperation of witnesses and authorities (even today). dealing with suspicious (museum or private) collections and ultimately to find fair solutions. As long as museums remain My colleagues abroad reacted quite differently to my silent and cover up the facts, substantial processes, which dismissal. I am very grateful for the international support are essential if Europe is to be an open, just and democratic and hosting invitations I have received and for the possibility continent, will be further blocked, and there will be a reluc- of talking here about my experiences. tance to do anything. Because a “correction” of the past is not possible, and there is no ideal solution for “reparation”, MH: But Slovenia is not the only country in Eastern Europe there can be no progress in provenance research, particu- where there is little or no political support for provenance re- larly in Eastern Europe, without political support. Instead of search and where it seems almost impossible to establish it. intimidating researchers, international cooperation should be fostered so that we can learn from each other’s experi- BM: I can only speak for Slovenia, but a critical assessment of ences. We must stop insisting on dividing Europe into East the (shameful) functions that artists and art historians fulfil and West: we can do so much with joint projects. That’s why in times of war and crisis just to consolidate political systems it’s so important – particularly for future generations – to is quite beyond the imagination of those who grew up after continue this research with other partners in Germany and the disintegration of Yugoslavia and the declared democra- Austria (Berlin, Vienna and Graz, for example). In spite of the tization of society in Slovenia. The collapse of Yugoslavia in personal consequences for myself, I therefore think that the 1991 showed, however, how the suppressed problems, de- TransCultAA project was a very important first step. I am spite the supposed “brotherhood and unity” claimed by the very grateful to the many colleagues and institutions abroad propagandists, could lead to the bloodiest conflicts in Europe for their support and look, I hope justifiably, with optimism since the Second World War, an experience that must not be to the future. I am looking forward very much to spending six repeated. This is another reason why I find the TransCultAA months as a guest researcher at the KHI in Florence. project so valuable; for the first time, we had European funds to investigate on an international scale the consequences of MH: That is a very admirable attitude. Apart from networ- expropriation and transfer of cultural objects for our Euro- king with international colleagues, what other benefits of pean society – and in (South-)Eastern Europe these conse- the TransCultAA project would you like to pursue further? quences are particularly grave. BM: The great thing about the project was that so many MH: The Berlin-based researchers’ association Arbeits- young researchers and students were involved. They kreis Provenienzforschung e.V. currently has 355 members participated, for example, in seminars investigating the

III ADDENDUM September 2020 – N°7 provenance of artworks from Slovenian Modernist exhibiti- Prof. Barbara Murovec is an art historian. She is principal on seized in 1941 in Ptuj (Pettau) and presented the results investigator in the HERA project TransCultAA, taken over at a conference. Their enthusiasm showed how valuable it is in 2019 by the Research and Documentation Centre JAS to foster the awareness of young generations of this issue. in Ljubljana and extended cost-neutrally until November Towards the end of the project it also became clear to me 2020. Currently, she is a DAAD Fellow at the Zentralinstitut how important and fruitful it will be to make direct use of the für Kunstgeschichte in Munich. methods of the digital humanities for future documentation, research and processing of the social traumas that we Euro- Prof. Meike Hopp is an art historian and provenance peans carry in us and that are repeatedly manifested in our researcher. Since November 2019 she has headed the de- culture, regardless of which side our forefathers belonged to partment of Digital Provenance at the TU Berlin. She is also as nations, representatives of social classes and ideologies or chairperson of Arbeitskreis Provenienzforschung e.V. as individuals.

MH: Thank you, Barbara, for these frank insights. I wish you all the best for your future projects.

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